Scott Speedman Thinks We All Forgot About Ben Covington

Scott Speedman is holding up an old North Face backpack that looks like it's been dragged through the mud for 20 miles and then stomped on by a pack of horses. "Look at that," he says with a grin. "Isn't that awful? Really disgusting. I'm a gross human being."

He's not, obviously, but the backpack, which Speedman has had since college, is pretty gnarly. It's also a strange juxtaposition to the pristine hotel room, which looks over Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. The actor, 39, is here for a press day promoting his new movie The Captive, a dark, gritty thriller from acclaimed Canadian director Atom Egoyan. In the film, out in New York on December 12 and Los Angeles on December 19, Speedman plays a conflicted police detective tasked with searching for an abducted girl who's been forced into child pornography. Egoyan, who Speedman worked with in 2008's Adoration, wrote the part specifically for the actor.

"That's never happened to me before," Speedman says. "So I knew I had to do it. But it's also a funny thing when somebody does write something for you and you read it and you're like, 'Oh, this is what you think of me.' But I understood why. He's a very complicated kind of guy."

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Photo: Michael Gibson, Courtesy of A24

Speedman, dressed for the upscale vibe of the hotel (despite the backpack, of course) is perched on the edge of the couch. He keeps picking up a cup of tea while speaking and then setting it back down without taking a sip. At the beginning of the interview, he claims that there's no way he can answer questions for a whole 30 minutes. That turns out to be a lie.

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"Every actor I know—any reasonable actor I know—is complicated," Speedman says. "What you see and what they are, those are two very different things. When they're working at a high level, they're bringing in those complications to the work. It's a very tricky thing. I try to do that with every role." He pauses. "Maybe too much."

The actor, who grew up in Toronto, came to Los Angeles for the first time when he was 22 to meet with J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves about a role on Felicity, his first real complicated character. He got off the plane and went straight to the Chateau Marmont for the meeting. Shortly thereafter, Speedman was cast as Ben Covington, an amiable cutie grappling with darker issues who spent four seasons embroiled in a love triangle with Keri Russell's Felicity and Scott Foley's Noel. But even with that as his formative role, Speedman isn't sure that fans recognize him as Ben anymore.

"To be honest, I think we've aged out of people thinking of me that way," he says. "It was a beloved show, but I don't think that boxed me in at all. It was only an opportunity."

When you mention the idea of fans being Team Ben or Team Noel, a discussion that would have been significantly amplified if Twitter had existed back then, Speedman just laughs. "The 'team' thing started later, after Twilight came out," he says. "Because no one said it back then." Not that the actor would really know. He refuses to have a Twitter account ("It sounds like such a mistake," he says) and clearly isn't a diehard romantic. He's dating no one. His hobbies include running on a track and playing basketball. He spends every Monday morning going to the movies alone.

"I sit down and watch Whiplash, which I loved, and I'm literally shaking in my seat having that feeling I had when I was kid and I watched movies," Speedman marvels. "That last sequence really stirred me up and reminds me of why I want to make movies and why I do this." He also liked The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, and Birdman.

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But does he think filmmakers consider him for those sorts of roles? "God, no!" he exclaims. He clearly thinks this is hilarious. "But they will. I'm not self-deprecating about it. One of these projects has to land in a certain way."

There's a reason this is on his mind right now: Speedman suffered a career blow earlier this year when HBO passed on picking up a pilot he made with Ryan Murphy. The actor spent over a year being cast, shooting the pilot episode and then waiting patiently to hear HBO's feedback. "It was one of those things," he says. "It just didn't work. I've never been involved in anything like that."

But the setback hardly dissuades him from his objective: success. "I don't have much of a personal life," he admits. "I don't have a family other than the one I grew up with. I'm not married. I don't have kids. I tried to have a dog, but that didn't work out. Balance has never been my strong suit. I am work-obsessed more than I've ever been. You asked me, 'Do they consider you for those parts?' and I want to get to the point where they are. I'm really into that right now. We'll get to the balance later."

If anything can help shift Speedman's perception in Hollywood, it's a movie like The Captive. The film, which also stars Ryan Reynolds and Rosario Dawson, is stark and engrossing. For the role, Speedman met with special victims detectives and read several books about the gritty topic. The idea that the Internet presents at-home risk resonated with him personally.

"My sister has two kids" he says. "She and I are around the same age and we both didn't grow with computers like that. But these kids were born into it. They're so much more sophisticated than us, and they're online all the time. It's a dangerous world to try to make sure everybody's okay. It's very intense for me."

His performance captures this intensity and the obsession with which these detectives approach their job. It's a reminder that while Speedman might not be part of the serious Hollywood conversation, he's approaching its fringes. "I think I'm on my way to becoming something that I know is good," he says. "Not great at all. But I think have potential." We do, too.

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